Archives Bellaciao EN 1999-2016

The Devastation of Iraq's Past by Hugh Eakin (URUKNET)

2008-07-31T09:03:37Z

URUKNET.INFO July 27, 2008
In May 2003—some eight weeks after the American invasion had begun— Abdul-Amir Hamdani, the archaeology inspector of Dhi Qar province in southern Iraq, traveled to Najaf to call on the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. He had an urgent request. "We needed his help to stop the pillage," Hamdani recalled. The province, which is midway between Baghdad and Basra, covers much of what was once the land of Sumer. In the third millennium BC, it was a fertile plain densely (…)

- contributions / Wars and conflicts, Exposure-Museums, International

US forces pillage, destroy humanity's most ancient artifacts in occupied Iraq

2007-12-03T15:05:06Z

An-Nasiriyah
Iraqi Resistance Report for 12/1/2007
140,000 ancient relics officially recorded as having been stolen or destroyed since US invasion in spring 2003
In a dispatch posted at 9:54pm Baghdad time Saturday night, the Yaqen News Agency reported that US forces were continuing to destroy, rob, and smuggle ancient Sumerian and Babylonian artifacts despite opposition by UNESCO, Iraqi intellectuals, and even the attempts by the American-installed "Iraqi Ministry of Culture" to stop (…)

- contributions / Wars and conflicts, Exposure-Museums, International, USA

Iraq asks Britain to return hundreds of missing artifacts

2007-11-17T04:37:33Z

The government has asked British authorities to hand over to the Iraq Museum 654 priceless archaeological pieces that went missing shortly after U.S. invasion troops landed in Baghdad in 2003.
Azzaman, November 8, 2007
A statement by the Ministry of Archaeology and Tourism said the pieces were among the thousands of artifacts that were looted from the Museum and the British authorities were under obligation to return them.
The statement faxed to the newspaper said the artifacts were (…)

- contributions / Exposure-Museums, International, UK

ALHAMBRA POLLOCK - Arab-Islam-West AMITY by fusing Islamic Art & American Abstract Expressionism

2007-04-29T03:57:15Z

"Alhambra Pollock" is a huge painting conflating brilliant Medieval, pure Islamic geometrical Art with the post-WW2 American Abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock (see: . If such cultural extremes can be fused in a beautiful painting then there is NO excuse for the current hatred and violence. WORDS having failed, can the hatred and violence be stopped by Beauty, Amity and Love?
27 April 2007 was the 70th anniversary of the Nazi German and Fascist Italian destruction of the Basque (…)

- contributions / Exposure-Museums, USA

Female Muralists Dip Brushes in Women's History

2006-03-14T02:09:40Z

By Eleanor Bader
A colorful mural of 90 female activists puts a splash of militant sass on the side of an otherwise drab wall in Brooklyn, N.Y. Produced by an all-female team of artists it leaves its chief creator dreaming of more public tributes to women.
BROOKLYN, N.Y. (WOMENSENEWS)—It is a cold, blustery Saturday and in the hours before a blizzard is set to begin, people in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn are moving quickly. Most carry heavy bags and seem to be rushed. (…)

- contributions / Women - Feminism, Exposure-Museums, USA

Tainted treasures in Malibu: The glory of Rome (and the smell of scandal)

2006-01-28T01:39:08Z

The Getty Villa, home to thousands of antiquities, reopens to the public in California this weekend after a $275m renovation. But the unveiling has been overshadowed by a series of allegations involving art theft and corruption.
Andrew Gumbel reports from Los Angeles
Under other circumstances, the reopening of the original J Paul Getty museum in Los Angeles - a painstakingly reproduced ancient Roman villa on the bluffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean - might have been cause for universal (…)

- contributions / Exposure-Museums, USA

The Darwin exhibition frightening off corporate sponsors

2005-11-24T16:07:28Z

By Nicholas Wapshott in New York
An exhibition celebrating the life of Charles Darwin has failed to find a corporate sponsor because American companies are anxious not to take sides in the heated debate between scientists and fundamentalist Christians over the theory of evolution.
The entire $3 million (£1.7 million) cost of Darwin, which opened at the American Museum of Natural History in New York yesterday, is instead being borne by wealthy individuals and private charitable donations. (…)

- contributions / Exposure-Museums, Religions-Beliefs, Environment, USA

Daily Show Spoof Leads To Firing Of Broward Art Guild Chief

2005-07-22T18:21:14Z

Daily Show Spoof Leads To Firing Of Broward Art Guild Chief By Jamie Malernee, Staff Writer July 22 2005
Once again, there's controversy over "Controversy," the Broward Art Guild's May exhibit — this time brought by The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
The guild's board of directors on Wednesday fired executive director Susan Buzzi, who has worked there at least 10 years, after she appeared in a Daily Show spoof on an explicit art piece without consulting them.
"They called a secret (…)

- contributions / Democracy, Exposure-Museums, USA